My Veggie garden update.

This all has been already done but I thought I’d share it since it starts my journey with veggie growing. I need to mention that I really did not know much to begin with, most of my initial knowledge came from YouTube; Google Search; Organic NZ Magazine and from my mum.

So I had this big mission to set up raised beds with lasagne like layers (click on a link to find out more) of nitrogen- carbon rich material and plant my vegetables on a section that was initially full of weed growing on clay mixed with rocks.

This is the section that I used for my Veggie Garden. Early October

The goal was to:

• Do this without using any chemicals like Roundup (click on a link to find out why not to use it) have it all organic
• To upcycle wood instead of buying new
• To create lasagne layers (another good link on how to do it) from things available around me or for free instead of buying
• To get some good deals on seedlings
• Vegetable beds couldn’t be too big and need to be easy to remove as we live in a rented property.
• Pick veggies that are easy to grow and don’t require much work

To do this project I spent some time learning about layering soil correctly and what can I use for them. There is so much material available that even if you are an amateur you will know exactly what to do. I also had to involve few people to help me out in setting it up…

This is how we did it:

Clear the weed: its hard to do anything when you have a little baby so I invited friends over for a gardening session with a tasty dinner and dessert as a Thank you

Dig holes and frame them with wood: my husband dug holes and we used some left over timber found behind the shed to build frames

Fill them with organic and rich mix: first newspapers (sourced from my neighbor) went for the bottom to stop the weed; later layers were created from a mix of partly composted chip bark (delivered for free from tree cutting company that I found on Trade Me); pine needles from my garden; leaves from the street; wet grass clippings (collected from a nearby pitch); lime and finally soil and compost (the only one I had to buy).

Plant vegetables: few visits to a nearby Garden Center’s Reduced in Price Plants section and I had: 12 various Tomato plants; 8 different Capsicum plants; 8 different Salads;  and 3 Cucumber plants. All cost a fraction of their original price (less than $50 for the whole) only because they didn’t look perfect 🙂 Marigolds where the only ones we paid a full price for but they were a necessary companion plant

An this is how it looked after we set it all up:

Just after planting in early November